For fans of the game, however, there's still hope: 3DRealms has been ordered to appear before a New York State Supreme Court judge on June 11 to argue why the judge should not order 3DRelams to turn over the Duke Nukem Forever source code to Take-Two, as the company has apparently asked the judge to do. The proposed order was part of the Take-Two suit.

That at least implies that Take-Two is interested in recouping its investment, which you can only do by releasing the game.

The sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, a DOOM contemporary, was originally due
on or around 1998. Since then, it has undergone multiple revisions and
alleged revisions in its 3D engine, all contributing to delay after
delay. In 2006, industry reports claimed that a large chunk of its
staff left the company, causing the development team to begin again.

The order also implies that the judge might order 3DRealms to be
"enjoined from disclosing, distributing, transferring or selling to any
party other than Take-Two any proprietary information related to DNF
(including the existing source and object code for DNF) and be required
to maintain and enforce all security measures necessary to preserve the
confidentiality of such proprietary information".